A Dystopia Without Bread

 

I woke up this morning to read this from a doctor in Gaza. I then opened a film clip of a man falling dead as he held out a bowl for food. 

Two days ago I was at the London march for Palestine and witnessed four police officers arrest an elderly woman for supporting a ‘terrorist’ organisation. She was standing close to this electronic police notice so she had been warned!

I am sending this out on my Facebook, on my website, and on other social media, but for the first time, to all my email contacts. 

I know that many of you know me and will agree with my opinions and feelings, but I also know that some of you will think, ‘oh that’s David, that old lefty. Bless him’. 

But if just one of you who think this of me, read this and then take action, in however big or small a way, I have not wasted my time.

From: Dr. Ezzideen in Gaza

"I swear to you. Before God. Before this wretched century. Before whatever last flicker of humanity may still remain in me, what I saw today was not life.

It was the collapse of everything that ever claimed to be sacred.

Once, Fridays in Gaza were holy.

Not because of tradition, but because they were tender.

A father would come home with fish, or perhaps a piece of chicken, and for one hour, we would eat like people.

We were poor, but not degraded.

We would smile across the table, thank God for a small plate of meat, and feel alive. We felt worthy of breath.

Even the poorest among us knew this dignity.

They saved all week. They endured hunger not out of habit, but for hope. 

For that one day.

That one meal.

That illusion of a normal life.

But now?

Today is Friday.

And I walked through the streets of Gaza, not to celebrate, not even to feed, but to hunt for rice.

Rotten rice.

Gray grains that stick to your fingers and taste like nothing.

Anything. Anything at all to fool the stomach into silence.

My brother searched one market. I searched another.

We returned with crumbs.

We paid with the last coins we had.

They ask for gold in exchange for ash.

And we pay it, because the children must eat, and because we no longer dare to say what is fair.

But I have not come to speak about rice.

I have come to confess what I saw.

A truck passed by.

It was empty.

Its floor was covered in a thin layer of flour dust.

Just dust.

Not bags. Not bread. Only the trace of something that might once have saved a child.

And then I saw them.

Not rebels. Not criminals.

Children.

They ran, ran like hunted things, toward that truck. They climbed it with hands that have never held toys.

They fell to their knees as if before an altar.

And they began to scrape.

One had a broken lid.

Another, a piece of cardboard.

But the rest, the rest used their hands.

Their tongues.

They licked it.

Do you hear me?

They licked flour dust from rusted steel. From dirt. From the back of a truck that had already driven away.

One boy was laughing.

Not because he was happy, but because the body goes mad when it is starving.

Another was crying, quietly, like someone who no longer believes anyone is listening.

And I stood there.

With all my shame.

With my hands in my pockets, like a man waiting for a bus.

Like I wasn't watching the end of the world.

I wanted to scream.

But what scream can reach Heaven, when Heaven itself is deaf?

What words can I offer?

What words can explain the sound of a child's tongue scraping against rust for a taste of flour?

There are no metaphors left.

There is no beauty in this.

Only sin.

Only crime.

And we are all guilty.

You. Me.

The ones who sent the truck.

The ones who sent the planes.

And God?

If You are watching, then cry with us.

And if You are silent, then we are alone in this hell.

This is the twenty-first century.

But history has not moved forward.

It has swallowed its own children and called it progress.

I don't want to write this.

I want to unsee it.

I want to forget the boy who licked the floor.

But I can't.

Because I saw him.

Because he is real.

Because he is more real than all the words l've written.

And because if I forget him, then I am no longer human.'

Further posts for you.

We Dream of Bread

We Stitch Their Names

Culture & The New Imperialism

A Jewish holocaust survivor at Saturday’s march

Medical Aid for Palestine

www.davidwilson.org.uk

SOME RESPONSES to A DYSTOPIA WITHOUT BREAD

My cousin, whose mum was one of the first to be gassed, calls them (Zionists) “Hitler’s children”. 

***

I, for one, hear you, see you and feel the pain also. I'm grateful for you and we are not alone in our total horror at what is taking place in front of our eyes. I'm in my 70s and this has changed me forever

***

I am aged 69 have protested a lot in my time. This current situation has changed me too. I feel as though I should have done more. I am a great grandmother and have never felt so horrified by, and ashamed of my country nor so fearful for the younger generations.

***

Thanks so much for this. Do you know the book by Nathan Thrall "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama"? I think it is one of the best books about Palestinian you can read.

***

Plenty of food for thought, if I can use the word "food." 28 countries actively criticizing the situation is such a small number that I genuinely wonder why there are not more. I'm wondering if the remaining countries are afraid to criticize Israel and therefore the US. I wrote to my MP about how ashamed I was that Canada wasn't doing more. He wrote back an extensive letter agreeing, but so what? The UN should have organized something by now, the EU the same ... it's all so medieval, I'm embarrassed to be alive ….. the world should hang its head.

***

Thank you. It has gone light years on from a living hell ...Bless you

***

It’s beyond terrifying. I’ve been sponsoring a family in Gaza for several months now. A husband & wife and three lovely little boys. Going through distilled, endless, grinding hell. A small bag of flour: $25. Same for a bag of carrots, chickpeas etc. Displaced at least 3 times in the last year. They’re all losing weight. And they’re still fucking smiling!! I am ashamed to be part of any ‘democracy’ that supports this. Am currently in Mostar. Remembering the war here, and thinking mostly how humans have everything, and appreciate nothing until they try to destroy others, only to find that the path of annihilation kills us all. Israel is committing pure fascist genocide. What else do we call it? The age of moral equivalence.

***

In case you haven’t seen it ….

Which line?

You say Bob Vylan crossed a line

Which line was that?

I saw some lines 

Inside mass graves

Blue rows of body bags

Beside the front loader

Red lines of blood and flesh

Between tracks in the sand

I don’t think you meant those.

Did you mean the lines

Of naked doctors

Kneeling in the dust

Before the tank?

I don’t recall you noticing.

Or the line of soldiers waiting

To rape a surgeon?

The thousands of lines

Of names of babies

Shredded and burned?

The lines of bullets

Hitting the car where Hind 

Was calling for help?

The line in the sky of F-35s

Dropping bombs on tents

That wasn’t what you meant.

The lines of starving people

Funnelled into cages

Like cattle at an abattoir

That was no cause for outrage.

So did you mean

The triple trillion bottom line

Of corporates making money

For the lords of war?

Is that what lines are for?

For you there are no lines

Before one day in October.

No lines on the map

Crossing out a country

No lines listing massacres 

No lines at checkpoints

No lines of stolen homes

No lines of olive trees.

Did you think you could ink a line

Under the Nakba

And the rest would die quietly?

Well sorry, you have crossed a line

Bob Vylan simply woke up

Your politely genocidal society.

Deborah Ewing

Culture & The New Imperialism

 

 "Israel's unbridled aggression is a similar continuation of what Columbus began: Western economic interests and a religion of the Book are being used to wipe out an indigenous population.” Michael Walling

Culture and The New Imperialism is a brilliant analysis of where our world finds itself right now. It is written by my friend, Michael Walling, artistic director of Border Crossings. This is a theatre company working successfully across borders between cultures and art forms, and between nations and peoples.

 Many years ago he directed my first play and I am pleased that I was  able to introduce him to Ken Livingstone. 

I returned last night from the London Palestine march where I had joined writer/playwright Jan Woolf; and very depressed after seeing the Met Police signs threatening our arrest for opposing genocide. (see photos below). Michael's article makes quite clear what is happening. 

"A few months ago, I had the chance to spend an evening chatting with Ken Livingstone. It was wonderful. Ken is 80 now, and his short-term memory isn't perfect, but his long-term memory absolutely is and his political understanding seems as sharp as ever. He also displayed a rare generosity of spirit, telling me how much he admired John Major, who had been his predecessor as Leader of Lambeth Council back in the 70s, and who "got things done". He was, it's fair to say, much less generous in his assessment of Boris Johnson, who "just didn't do the job" as Mayor of London (or anything else); but his only real bitterness was reserved for the tabloid press, who had caused him great personal pain and political turmoil by labelling him an anti-Semite. The same, of course, happened to Jeremy Corbyn. You've got to hand it to the Tory tabloids: only they could so manipulate the media as to convince the bulk of the population that men like these, who have dedicated much of their life to campaigning against racism, are actually themselves racists.

I've had some experience of this myself. Back in 2014, when we presented THIS FLESH IS MINE in a co-production with ASHTAR Theatre from Ramallah, I received quite a number of emails which accused me, and the company, of being anti-Semitic. There were no explicit references to Jewishness or Israel (or even Palestine) in the play, which deliberately used a mythological framing to distance its exploration of the cyclical nature of violence and its manipulation by global power blocs from the detailed specifics of the ongoing occupation. It seemed that the simple action of collaborating with Palestinian artists, which I absolutely agree in itself does come to constitute a political statement, was also regarded as inherently anti-Semitic. Where is the racism in that equation? In the artists who reach out to one another with the aim of furthering dialogue and understanding, or in the person who regards anything and anyone Palestinian as by definition expressing hatred towards Jewish people?

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has brought these issues to the fore again. Our online reading of THE GAZA MONOLOGUES in late 2023 attracted Zoom-bombers, who were determined that the stories of Gazan youth should not be heard. We did all we could to make sure they were heard, and to avoid making the Zoom-bombing itself into "the story". This is a real problem in the current debate (and I feel very conscious that in some ways this post is itself contributing to that problem). I have every sympathy with the people who have been calling on the media to stop making Bob Vylan's Glastonbury performance "the story", as this only distracts from the reality of what is happening in the Occupied Territories. Chanting “Death, death to the IDF” does not represent any sort of humanitarian or nuanced approach: but neither does the (nominally Labour) UK government's response, which has been to condemn the BBC for allowing its live stream of the concert to continue. The Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, has been taking an ever-more aggressive stance towards the public broadcaster over its coverage of Gaza, most recently demanding "Why has nobody been fired?" in relation to the BBC's showing of the exceptional and very moving documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which was pulled from iPlayer when it emerged that the 13 year old narrator was the son of a Hamas official. 

Let's pause there for a moment. Does the identity of the boy's father actually make the film inherently biased or inaccurate? I don't think so. The statistics around casualties issued by the Gaza health ministry are actually lower than most estimates, and that's because they are carefully verified. The BBC always states that these statistics come from "the Hamas-run Health Ministry", which is the equivalent of saying that we have "the Labour-run Health Ministry". Hamas is the elected government of Gaza. Yes, the UK government (and many others) regards it as a terrorist organisation, but this is a matter of semantics and positionality. The activist group Palestine Action is also now a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, even though its actions could easily and more appropriately be prosecuted as criminal damage. South Africa's ANC was also a proscribed terrorist organisation before that narrative underwent a complete turnaround. The Hamas attack on Israel was undoubtedly brutal and indiscriminate: but is it really justified to describe this action by an elected government as a simple (and mindlessly evil) "terror attack", if the actions of the elected (if decidely insecure six-party coalition) government of Israel are always called acts of "war", or even of "self-defence"? Why do we not call the actions of Israel "terrorism", or the actions of Hamas "war"? Isn't the difference only in the viewpoint? The documentary was as objective (and as subjective) as any other film made by and about young people going through constant bombardment and daily trauma. The only justification for its effective banning is the sense that this is somehow the work of "the enemy": a sense that also implies a view of Israel as being on "our side", the "good guys" in a Manichean, black and white world. The language and the discourse, the cultural dimension, really matter; particularly in this conflict which has such huge implications for the entire world.

The kind of censorship and prejudice that Nandy is exercising is not confined to the UK. America has a long-standing commitment to stamping out any criticism of Israel: Trump's attacks on students who protest against the genocide are only a logical development of the unwavering support shown by the US towards what is essentially its client state in a geopolitically vital region. Mainland Europe, and particularly Germany, is moving ever further to the right, which includes increasing its support for Israel, both economically and culturally. To give a few examples:

- Last month my friend Elli Papakonstantinou was presenting her theatre piece Holy Bitch at the Neuköllner Oper in Berlin. It's an angry, feminist work, and at one point there was a brief reference to the genocide in Gaza. The management asked her to remove this from the show, and, when she did not, greatly reduced the publicity they gave to the work. Journalists refused to cover it. The subtitles went blank when the dreaded word "genocide" was spoken.

- Lina Majdalanie & Rabih Mroué are Lebanese artists living in Berlin, whose most recent work Four Walls and a Roof used Brecht's 1947 appearance before the "Un-American Activities Committee" of Congress to delve into questions of artistic freedom. At one point, they mention that when they first came to Germany, people used to ask them about censorship in Lebanon. Now people in Lebanon are asking them about censorship in Germany. 

- Back in 2022, before the latest overwhelming attacks on Palestinian populations, the great playwright Caryl Churchill had an award for her lifetime's achievement rescinded by a German-appointed jury because of her support for Palestinian causes. As Lina Majdalanie puts it: "Cancellation of invitations, awards, conferences, theatrical  pieces, exhibitions... Public accusation and condemnation of this writer or that artist, or anyone else... Dismissal of journalists, academics... Public funding subject to political obedience... The list goes on."

- In April 2020, the German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, decided that the Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe was "not suitable" to deliver the keynote at the Ruhrtriennale because of his supposed anti-Semitism. The root of this accusation turned out to be Mbembe's 2016 essay The Society of Enmity, in which he applies post-colonial ideas, examining Israel as a settler-colony, and pointing out how the treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories "recall the reviled model of apartheid". 

Mbembe's argument seems decidedly mild and understated in the light of what has happened since. It wasn't even a particularly unusual point to make. As long ago as 1951, Hannah Arendt had pointed out links between Germany's history as a colonial power and the development of the systematic murder machines of the Nazis' Holocaust against the Jews and other perceived "enemies". Mbembe's point was that European (and by extension, North American) societies have a need for a racialised "Other" - "a Negro, a Jew, an Arab, a foreigner" - to provide a justification for their acquisitive and rapacious colonisation of territories beyond their own. The "resettlement of the world" he explained, "often took the shape of innumerable atrocities and massacres, unprecedented instances of 'ethnic cleansing', expulsions, transfers, and concentrations of entire populations in camps, and indeed of genocides." The first genocide of the 20th century was not the Third Reich's Holocaust but the massacre of Herero and Nama people in Namibia by the German Second Reich. The mindless racism that it betrayed serves to underline Mbembe's point that Nazism cannot be regarded as uniquely evil, but should be understood as an extreme maifestation of the cultural mindset that underpinned imperialism, and continues to be present in neo-colonialism today. 

The reason Mbembe's argument was deemed anti-Semitic was not simply that he compared Israel's policy towards Palestine with settler colonialism and apartheid, but also that his placing of the Holocaust in an historical and cultural perspective undermined the prevailing belief that this event was uniquely evil in the history of the world. It suits the state of Israel to construct the Holocaust as exceptional and evil rather than historical, because that can be regarded as a justification for the total paranoia with which it segregates its populations, militarises its borders and attacks its neighbours. It also suits Germany, and the wider constructs of "Europe" and "the West" in which that state plays such a leading role. "Vergangenheitsbewältigung", the "struggle of overcoming the past", has come over time to elide into a strangely self-congratulaory position, whereby unquestioning German support for Israel and a delusional imagining of anti-Semitism in every critique of Israeli policy represents a fundamental break with the past. Paradoxically, it also permits other forms of racism to take hold, as the current drift to the right bears witness. If something is "Evil" then it ceases to be historically and culturally explicable: it becomes simply an enemy to be fought perpetually and incessantly. This is how fascism comes to beget more fascism.

The moment we look at the Holocaust as an historical event, then both its deep roots in European culture and colonialism and its current repercussions in global geopolitics make much more sense. "Reich" means "Empire": Nazism was a logical development of the 1492 project - the process whereby a self-satisfiedly "Christian" and "civilised" Europe imposed its hegemony on much of the world, with racist ideology as its justification. Israel's unbridled aggression is a similar continuation of what Columbus began: Western economic interests and a religion of the Book are being used to wipe out an indigenous population. It is through a nation's relationship to colonial histories that its stance on Palestine can most clearly be understood. The United States is an Empire founded on genocide: of course it supports the state of Israel. Great Britain ran the largest Empire the world has ever seen: it too, supports Israel. Germany is in a weird space of denial about its Imperial past: and it supports Israel. On the other hand, a country like Ireland (which we are proud to call Border Crossings' second homebase) has a colonised people's understanding of land grabs, of the use of religion to mask political incursions, of hunger as a weapon, of partition and the militarization of the streets. Ireland has a strong affinity with the Palestinian cause: as this current exhibition in London attests. The vast majority of the Global South - the nations that understand what it is to be colonised - stand with the Palestinian people too. It is deeply depressing to see that humanity is still locked in to the colonial paradigm. 

We need to re-think how post-coloniality is applied. The "post-" doesn't just mean "after": it means "in relation to". Culture and the academy have made much of post-colonialism in relation to cultures and peoples that once were colonised, to the extent that the approach has come to seem a bit tired, and rather patronising, as if (say) Gikuyu society in Kenya can only be understood in relation to the former (and current) British presence there. But if we turn the post-colonial mirror back on the former colonisers, it becomes altogether more illuminating. Let us start to recognise that we still behave as we do on the world stage because of the deep-seated assumptions and prejudices that made our societies into colonial powers. Let us recognise that the crass sloganeering of the right ("Take Back Control", "Make America Great Again") evokes a colonial policy of agression, acquisition and oppression, grotesquely misrepresented as "greatness". Once we have dared to look properly at ourselves, perhaps then we will be able to stop supporting genocide, and cease to brand as racist the very people who are standing against the scourge of racism."

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We are all Palestine Action

 

" The British government clearly believes that the protection of war planes and drones and bombs is far more important than the protection of children and the people of Gaza. It literally places weaponry above human life in its scale of moral values — Sharing this video could get you 14 years in prison.”

George Monbiot

I am sharing it here. Will you?

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have voted to proscribe campaign group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation, raising fears about freedom of expression in the country. Parliament voted 385-26 in favour of the measure against the group on Wednesday, the move coming after its activists broke into a military base last month and sprayed red paint on two planes in protest at the UK’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

NEEDED TIME

 

My forthcoming  book, My World Music, is now with my editor and will be published before the end of this year. Chapter 17  is about Eric Bibb  and the Spitz music project.  If you like what you read here please consider giving the Spitz your support. More info HERE

NEEDED TIME 

‘We'll get over these rough waters / We'll come through.’

ERIC BIBB

I first came across Eric Bibb at his gig at the Spitz in East London’s Old Spitalfields market in 2000. He performed songs from his 1994 album, Spirit & The Blues. My favourites were Rough Waters and Needed Time. I had recently returned from Mostar after being sacked from War Child for exposing corruption, and so was in need of a little ‘needed time’.

The Spitz was a bistro and music venue managed by Jane Glitre, who I got to know during my time in Bosnia. She had made four trips to besieged Sarajevo when she climbed over Mount Igman as part of a group invited there by Sarajevo women.

After returning to London, I became a Spitz regular and enjoyed hearing their eclectic mix of artists. They included performances from musicians such as John Renbourne, Beth Orton and Bert Jansch, as well as Eric Bibb. As a black blues’ singer with a deep warm voice, he was born into a lineage of music and activism. His father, Leon Bibb, marched with Martin Luther King Jnr, and Eric found his inspiration from Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Taj Mahal, all of whom he synthesised into his own unique style.

He has said music allows us, ‘to celebrate the good things in life and also to be aware of our spirituality in the midst of all this difficulty and oppression ... I think musicians have a role to play in uniting people ... to make some kind of universal family of us, as we’re meant to be.’

Needed Time was first brought to prominence by blues singer, Lightning Hopkins, who recorded it in 1950. ‘You’re gonna hear this in your heart,’ he said, ‘slowly rough and delicately brutal, like stones being rattled in a can.’

Eric Bibb speaks of Needed Time as a modern psalm, expressing despair and hope as we face our troubles. All his songs are overtly religious, but the aspirations give voice to a universal need for help in the difficulties we all face in life. I’m an atheist, but say Amen to that.

That night at the Spitz, Bibb also sang Rough Waters, with this chorus line:

We'll get over these rough waters

There's a new shore yonder waiting

Jane told me that when she was on was on her way to Mostar for the opening of the Pavarotti Music Centre, Bibb sang it on a phone call to her, encouraging her to greet a new and positive change in her experience of this war-torn country.

The Spitz venue closed in 2007, a victim to corporate greed. The London Magazine said of its enforced closure, ‘investors take advantage of London’s unique creative environment by destroying it.’ They couldn’t destroy the woman who had climbed over a mountain in wartime, and she set up The Spitz Charitable Trust. Today, they take live music into care homes and hospitals. A lot of their work takes place at Bridgeside Lodge Care Home in Islington, and they also work at Great Ormond Street, Northwick Park and Ealing hospitals. They bring music to geriatric, stroke, mental health and children’s wards, and have recently been asked to work in children’s hospices.

I visited Bridgeside in February 2024 to witness a musical session with guitarist Marcus Bonfanti, and saxophonist Pete Wareham. At a time when the world seemed to be fast-tracking its way into barbarism, it was refreshing to witness a strong dose of love, tenderness and excitement. The musicians first visited the common room and played Music is Friendship to the residents. The song had been composed by one of the residents, Big Joe (his preferred stage name) who smiled from his wheelchair. He is a younger man for whom creativity and songwriting works wonders for his mental health.

Music is friendship

Music is life

Music is friendship

And it takes away my strife

They went on to play Bill Wither’s Lean on Me, and Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry about a Thing. The residents there are now much closer in years to The Rolling Stones than to Vera Lynn. 

Marcus and Pete then moved on to residents who are unable to leave their beds. I stood outside one elderly woman’s room as they played one of her favourites, Love Me Tender. As they left, I heard her say ‘Bless your hearts. That was really great’.

On the next floor there was a man whose face lit up when he saw that Marcus had brought him a guitar to play. His favourites included Chuck Berry’s No Particular Place to Go and Memphis Tennessee. One of the care workers added to the percolating joy with a routine that involved spontaneous dancing and tenderly holding the hands of the otherwise isolated residents.

The two musicians completed their set with John Martyn’s May You Never.

And may you never lay your head down

Without a hand to hold

Back in the corridor we passed a resident who told the musicians he loved Balkan music. Jane and I could have helped here if only we played guitar or sax, but the two musicians managed to oblige.

Six months later I returned to witness a singing workshop with the residents. I was expecting a ’sing-along’, with everyone encouraged to join in that old chestnut Kumbia. Not so. They were harmonising to Ben E King’s Stand by Me andTammy Wynette’s Everything’s Going to be All Right. The following day, and with the sun reluctantly appearing, we were in the garden, and two musicians, Ben Hazelton on double bass, and Keli Woods on guitar and vocals filled the air with music and song. Their session ended with All You Need is Love. I watched as the mostly wheelchair-bound residents allowed the sunshine and music to light up their faces.

William Congreve got it right when he said, ‘Music hath charms to soothe the breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak’.

All the songs from these two sessions dealt with human empathy in times of trouble, and the need for love and understanding. Great songs with positive emotions but sung in this setting they carried a truth whose strength was at its most powerful.

I saw wives, daughters and sons of residents engage with their relatives, enabling the music to help them with their tenderness. This second visit to Bridgeside was more dramatic for me than my earlier visit. I was strongly aware that many, if not most, of the residents were younger than me. One man in his early forties, who had suffered brain injury, appeared to be asleep and was slumped on one side as he was wheeled out into the garden. But he sat upright and joined in the singing and smiled and clapped at the end of each song. Another middle-aged man, who had suffered brain damage, after being found alone five hours after a stroke, was accompanied by his wife and daughter who spent the afternoon talking to, and caressing, their loved one. With Billy Joel’s Just the Way You Are, his daughter danced in front of him as Keli sang,

I would not leave you in times of trouble

We never could have come this far,

I took the good times, I'll take the bad times

I'll take you just the way you are

I couldn’t help but think ‘there but for the grace...’ I had had heart surgery, been kept alive with a cow’s heart valve and spent seven weeks at Barts Hospital after a stroke, and while their laboratory struggled to find a way to remove an infection from the valve. Before that I’d had a subdural hematoma which had pushed my brain into less than 50% of my cranium. And here I was now, an observer to others who had not been so lucky.

As I left, walking with my stick, I raised my eyes to the god I do not believe in. The care home staff are skilled practitioners of love and affection. In so far as there is still any civilisation left in this world, it is because of the residents and staff of places like Bridgeside Lodge and the work of The Spitz and these musicians. 

Once again in my life, I was witness to the power of music. Care home residents who could forget their problems with song and music and with the help of musicians and carers who have the skills to transform troubles into a blaze of light. And a hand to hold.

Right now, is the needed time

Now is the needed time.

Needed Time, studio recording